ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. -- Cage Fury Fighting Championships went big
for its 14th
edition, debuting at Atlantic City's Borgata Hotel Casino and
Spa. Its featured fighters did just the same, as three northeastern
fighters – George
Sullivan, Aljamain
Sterling and Sean
Santella -- made their case for a big-show debut.

In the evening’s headliner, Sullivan quickly halted former training
partner and UFC veteran Greg Soto to
take the CFFC welterweight crown in sudden fashion.

Former brothers-in-arms at
Pellegrino MMA, the familiarity between the two fighters shone
through in the bout. A feeling-out period early in this bout
allowed Sullivan to find an opening, capitalizing with a nasty
right hook that put Soto away at the 2:09 mark and taking the CFFC
title.

“I knocked him out twice in practice with stupid things and pulled
back,” Sullivan explained to Sherdog.com after the bout. “Not
knocked him out cold, but knew I had the striking power. I’ve never
been rocked in a fight before. He’s been rocked. I saw every time I
went to throw a jab (in this fight) he would lean his head. So I
faked the jab and just threw one hard right.”

Sullivan, now 10-3 (1 NC) for his career, credits a loss to
Elijah
Harshbarger last April for completely turning his career around
for the better.

“I went to Kurt
Pellegrino and said I need to learn how to wrestle. I have to
diet. I need a nutritionist. I got to lift weights. Thirteen pro
fights I never lifted weights before. This camp I lifted weights. I
never had wrestling coaches. I wrestled and cut the right now. Now
I feel like a pro fighter.”

Unbeaten 135-pound prospect Aljamain
Sterling is an aspiring teacher who moonlights as the CFFC
bantamweight champion. However, with another impressive win, the
product of Cortland, N.Y.’s
Team Bombsquad may soon however be daylighting against MMA’s
best bantamweights.

Keith
Mills

A-L-J-A-M-A-I-N. Learn it.

Returning to action after his student teaching stint, the
22-year-old Sterling battled through conflict in his first title
defense against Casey
Johnson, as the Raleigh, N.C., native caught Sterling in a
tight triangle choke in the first.

“I didn’t expect him to be so clingy on the wrist, but he got me,”
Sterling told Sherdog after the fight. “I heard his cornerman
yelling, saying, ‘You’re done Aljamain! You hear me! You’re done!’
But I was thinking, ‘Oh man, but I’m not done yet.’ I was pretty
close to going out on the ground so I figured I should get him up
to create a little breathing room.”

Sterling freed himself and used his physical, controlling style to
wear Johnson down, eventually claiming his sixth pro win via
rear-naked choke at 2:11 of the third round.

After winning the flyweight title at CFFC 13 against Bryan
Lashomb, the aforementioned Sean
Santella easily took apart Philadelphia’s Tuan Pham.
“Shorty Rock” confidently passed Pham’s guard early and after that,
the finish was inevitable. The
AMA Fight Club rep successfully defended his title with a
rear-naked choke submission victory at 1:53 in the opening
round.

Now 10-3-1, Santella’s lone loss in his last six is his October 11
decision loss to Aljamain
Sterling in his CFFC bantamweight title bid.

K.
Mills

Santella earned another sub.

Evan
Chmielski had the unenviable task of trying to slow down the
eclectic arsenal of the Albanian Artur Rofi.
“The Albanian Nightmare” was on his back early, but kept attacking
Chmielski with submissions in the 2nd forcing the tap due to
submission by triangle choke stopping the bout at 1:23 in the 2nd
round.

Light heavyweight Erik Purcell
was going to score a double-leg on Danny Holmes
no matter what it took. However, after defending three separate
guillotine attempts, Purcell couldn’t fend off the fourth, and
Holmes earned the tap at 2:48 of the first round.

The debuting Jonavin Webb
made quick work of Brooklyn’s Robert
Gittens. Webb put Gittens on the mat early in the fight and
never relented, eventually taking his back and scoring the
rear-naked choke submission victory at 2:35 in the first.

A lightweight bout between Mike Medrano
and Matt
Nice ended almost as quickly as it got started. Medrano bulled
over Daddis Fight Camp’s Nice and into his guard. As soon as Nice
saw an opening he tried to stand the fight back up. Medrano saw an
opening of his own though to counter and that he did with a
guillotine submission stopping the bout 47 seconds after it
started.

In an interesting tussle between middleweight prospects “Chocolate
Thunder” Shedrick
Goodridge and Michael
Wilcox, Wilcox tried to use his superior wrestling to his
advantage but he left his neck open and Goodridge took advantage.
“Chocolate Thunder” latched on a guillotine choke and forced the
tap from Wilcox in just 77 seconds.

Pellegrino MMA was in action at featherweight as Raphael
Chaves took on Brian
Kelleher from Team Bombsquad. After a close first round, Chaves
gassed in the second, allowing Kelleher to take advantage. “Boom”
ended the bout with punches at 3:41 in the second round.

The first knockout of the night came at welterweight, where
Ozzy
Dugulubgov put down Brian
Nielson with a head kick. He quickly followed up with a flurry,
forcing referee Keith Peterson to stop the action at 1:41 into the
opening round.